I don’t know what “missing bits” you Bobs are talking about. This started as a sort of triangular, round-on-one-side, conical kinda chunk, and I mounted it between corners. and left what I could of the curved, bark side intact. Those dark spots are actually the Cambium layer.You know how you take a several-inch-thick slab that’s somewhat round and you quarter it, getting four (if you do it right) bowl blanks that look, in profile, like a rocking triangle? Then, you cut the top corner off and mount it with a screw drive stuck in the convex face, which becomes the open side of the bowl? That’s what I started with. Except that I whittled a flat spot on opposing corners and mounted it between centers long enough to get a spigot on the bottom for my pin jaws. Frankly, I was doing some “angry turning”. That’s where I just need to put steel to wood and feel it changing shape under my hands. I had no plans for this. I flew off the chuck four times, and I didn’t care. Of course, at some point – as so often happens – an exercise in frustration became an all-important museum piece. Thank you. I’m glad you like it.

Dave, the “experts” would have you start with a perfectly square cube, mounted perfectly between centers. Which is the protocol I tried the first couple times I did this. I think I proved with this piece that, as long as you can make something of some shape spin between centers on opposing points, something can be gotten from it. In short, it’s not as scary as it may seem. Nor as difficult. Just keep the tools sharp and the touch light. And get used to riding the bevel.